


Old Blood

by Anonymous



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Era, Early Derailment, Gen, Pre-Slash, Vampires, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-07
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-25 21:55:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/958033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are bloodless corpses in the river of M-sur-M, and Javert doesn't know what is the cause though sooner he'll be closer than he'd ever imagined to true evil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Blood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [drcalvin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/drcalvin/gifts).



> Prompt: Madeleine-era vampire crossover/AU: There are unexplained murders with bloodless corpses in M-sur-M. Valjean has encountered vampires somewhen, and reluctantly realizes he needs to work with Javert to stop the killings. Either crossover with a fitting canon or original vamps.No modern au or genderbent.

The sky was dark above and the streets oddly deserted for this time of night. Where usually there would be people promenading, arm in arm, there was only one hurried person slipping into their house, clutching their shawl tightly around them. Javert frowned. Of a nature whose temperament predisposed him to suspicion, he did not see peace in the quietness but only a lurking menace that had not yet chosen to disclose itself. There had been something in the air for days that he did not trust, some change in the wind or the town itself. Faces were more closed in suspicion now, and there had been women who had requested his arm back to their dwelling when the night had begun to close in and left them still outside. He knew the cause of that fear at least, the three white bodies dragged from the river, white not merely with the pallour of death but exsanguinated entirely, not a drop of blood left in them, their eyes rimed with water, their pockets emptied.

One by one they had washed up on the shore, first a beggar-man who had frequented the street for a week or two, mumbling to himself and using the odd coin thrown to him to buy wine, and the town had barely noticed. The second one had been a young man and Javert had been the first to see him and to order the face covered before rumour and gossip could spread around the town. The third one though, the body of a plump middle aged woman who had merely gone to the well for water after dark, had been found by a friend of hers and the town had been in fevered suspicion ever since.

 It was not the way that Javert preferred to work, driven on the one hand by the knowledge that the killings were probably all by the same man and on the other by the hysteria of the town, dangerously close to erupting violently against the man on whom suspicion had been placed- a newcomer who was staying at the inn under the pretext so they claimed of collecting cuttings of a rare plant that belonged to the local cure. He did not dare leave his room, and although Javert after one interview had satisfied himself that there was no connection had not been able to convince the town of the same thing. He was almost tempted to request help of the mayor in calming the populace when he returned, his pronunciations were taken almost as the world of God, but not only was the mayor away but Javert had no fancy for his help, his suspicion in himself overwhelming him at times with the question of who or what the mayor was. The fancy had flitted through his brain that it was perhaps the mayor himself, but despite his distrust and dislike of the man, he dismissed that in moments disbelieving that there could be any connection, the times did not match, and he had checked the Mayor’s movements rigorously ever since the slowly forming half belief that he was something other than what he seemed.

He strolled his beat casually, collar tucked in against the chill of the night, and slowly turned over the events of the case in his mind. What man would kill in such a way, allow his victim to drain slowly dry of blood like a game bird hung for long days? What possible point could there be in such a thing when a knife would be faster and more secure? His pace slowed as he contemplated the bodies that he had seen before their swift and decent burial was ordered. Drained of blood, wet from the water, they had been mute and accusing in their lack of wounds bar the tiny scratches upon their neck that he had only seen by accident. He had been disbelieving that they could be of any connection until the closest examination of the body revealed nothing else out of the ordinary.

Then in a whirl of motion the mayor was there, having returned from his trip, his face blanched at the new knowledge of death in his town. “Javert,” he said, “I know what it is that attacks the populace so.”

There was a breath of a moment in which Javert might have said something, might have clicked the cuffs around Madeleine’s wrists, restrained him, but the memory of that whiteness, that stillness of the victims was still with him, and he released a breath and stepped away. The mayor’s eyes followed him and a part of Javert, savage, instinctual wanted to close his hands around his hands and tell him  _I know_  and  _you are not free,_  for he was certain now that Madeleine was who he suspected he was. He restrained himself though to a short nod, for these murders were not the work of the mayor and for the sake of the town all information was necessary, and when Madeleine walked, he walked with him, down streets unnaturally deserted, through a town paralysed by fear and listened to the grotesqueness of the horror that Madeleine described.

 

He will never remember precisely what happened next- the exact revolting sensation of his fear and his pain are lost details to him. Someday he would be glad to forget, except in dreams, the details of the grotesqueness of what was thrust upon him, the slavering filthy breath, the utter, terrible strength of the thing that flung him against the wall, stunned him and pressed him down. “Inspector,” it said, and Javert almost fainted as he never thought he could, at the concentrated malice within the words, more than he had thought it possible. Then it smiled at him, and when everything else fades, that smile would remain, dug into his flesh, sunk into his neck with the dreadful mindless hunger of a beast caught in human flesh. He could feel it, feltthe blood that gushes down his neck, a torrent, and from closing eyes he saw the Mayor attack the  _thing_  fend it off with his hands, his strength only barely enough to keep it at bay. He watched them wrestle for his life, and understood that it did not matter who would win, for he could not survive these wounds.

There was a quiet noise though, and like a shadow a second one of them, unobserved by Valjean knelt before him, and bit into itself, let a slow trickle of blood smear his face, and dribble into his mouth, before it crept away, the entire process taking seconds at most. Madeleine thrust the other creature away and wounded, it hissed, and with the precise vision-defying movements that characterised its kind, it slunk away into the darkness. Then there were warm hands on his neck, and Madeleine knelt there in the mud and watched, gaze horrified as Javert’s flesh knit itself together, his skin ravelling up and healing, the gush of blood stemmed, yet he did not shrink away at the monster that Javert was becoming, though fear was in his eyes. In moments, he was healed though weakened beyond belief, a pale, empty shell of a man, if man he thought with growing horror, he could even be called now. Then Madeleine’s hands were urging him to his feet, supporting him, half-carrying him to a place he vaguely recognised was the mayor’s house. Thankfully then, he sank into oblivion.

When he roused, the sunlight was full on his face, a warm touch and he could be convinced for a second that last night had been some terrible dream. When he moved though, the tender skin of his neck rubbed against his collar and his uniform was still saturated with blood, the smell of it thick in the air. He was on a pallet bed and Madeleine was asleep in a chair, his face sad in repose.  _They burn in the sunlight,_ he remembered Madeleine telling him,  _they cannot abide its touch,_ and he is comforted for the moment.

"Three days," Madeleine said, and his voice was numb and distant. Javert felt the warmth of the sun on his skin still, but it wasn’t natural or comforting, not anymore and when he raised his hands, they were reddened and sore-looking, and he remembered with a lurch, the taste of that foul blood smeared across his mouth, stumbled to his feet and ungracefully retched out the window. When he stood upright again, even more than the nausea that floods him, he was ashamed of his lack of control, of the way he had taken that news. When he tried to apologise though, Madeleine waved him off with a hand.

"How do you know this?" Javert asked, but he already knew. Now that he thinks on it, he had seen this before, men who paled and sickened over days until one day they never woke, chained in death as in life. He knew now, what Madeleine was, his suspicions have been confirmed and he recoiled, caught between two evils, the man who has broken parole, and what he himself has become. Valjean came nearer, held out his hands almost unconsciously it seemed. "Javert," he said, "it can be stopped. Three days. If you can kill the thing, you will be returned to your previous state. This can be stopped," and he stopped for a second as though to gather himself. "I know this," he said, slowly, dully. "I know this from the chains of Toulon." The words fell into a silence that stifled Javert, a revolting mixture of triumph and fear caught in his throat.

Taking silence for understanding, Valjean continued. “They knew what we were, knew that we were chained, that we had no way to resist. They would feed from us in the dark, drain us dry slowly, night after night, rejoice in our fear and our pain. I believe they fed as much from that as from our blood, for they grew stronger when we moaned. There was nothing that we could do,” and he licked his lips as though in memory of old, old pain, and turned his head to the side. “They fed from me once,” he confessed, “but never again. I believe you do not assume their form unless you feed from them in turn. Afterwards I learnt what I could of them so if I ever came across them again, I should know, and in Toulon an Ignorantin Friar taught me of their lore.”

Javert’s stomach turned over uneasily again, but it was empty, and he quelled it with an act of will. “This can be stopped you say? I must kill the creature.”

Valjean opened his hands hopelessly. “I could have stopped it,” he said quietly, nothing more than the truth, he could have fastened those hands around the thing and choked the life from it, “but I could not kill,” and Javert had seen the truth of that for himself. There had been a failure of will. If he were to be saved, it must be by his own hand.

"I should arrest you," he said roughly, "I should drag you before a court of law for your crimes, for the breaking of your parole, for your insolence in commanding the respect of these people."

There was a strange look of pity in Valjean’s eyes, and Javert noticed that the fear that had been there before had disappeared, no matter how much more Javert should now have provoked it. “You might,” he said, but he neither agreed nor disagreed. “If I should consent to go. In your present state however Inspector, I doubt your capability to drag me. Now I propose that we should be of use to this town and its people and indeed to yourself, and hunt the creature that has done this to you.”

Javert was not an imaginative man, an imagination is of little use when dealing with men who will twist words to fit their cause and play upon you if you will let them, but still he thought he could feel the noxious substance in his veins, crawling up in his arms, pumping through him with every beat of his heart. His head felt dizzy, hot and bewildered, and his mouth was watering uncomfortably although he was not the least bit hungry. He kept upright, mostly through force of will, from the need to keep marching onwards. Although Valjean was behind him, Javert could sense every one of his movements as though another sense was in operation, one he hardly knew how to describe. It was as though his sense of smell was a thousand times more pronounced, as though his eyes were shut but still he could see. Valjean smelt as though tobacco smoke has touched his clothes, there was the sharp, bright scent of coinage on his hands, a warm, musky smell that Javert realised must be his skin, and underneath it all, relentless and compelling there was the scent of his blood, an inevitable tidal wave in Javert’s ears, something to regulate his own slowed heartbeat against.

Part of him urged decorum, urged restraint and the manner befitting a policeman and his convict and it was this innate strength that prevented him from drawing closer to Valjean, to that intoxicating smell, forced him to continue to walk onwards and not to beg for a taste, just a single revolting delicious taste from the spring of life that is within Valjean, and all that is within him that is his own, cried out in horror at the thought, at the terrible thought. This was not him, it was whatever demon had crawled within him and now lived, used his senses as their own. He turned his mind away from his own corrupted flesh, and sniffed at the air, attempted to gauge what has passed this way, and hoped for just a whiff of the thing that had turned him, something to guide them, a trail to follow, a way in which he could assuage this disaster and return to what he once was.

He would not allow himself to imagine failure, to imagine life as this slavering beast, led only by appetites best not understood, a creature of the dark, an embodiment of sin that his unstretched mind knew should be left in the dark. When he swallowed the wetness of his own mouth, his inner lip scraped against the enlarged upper teeth and the saliva was joined by the taste of his own blood, a momentary satiation- and he was filled with fear that he might even be the sort of animal that devours itself in time of need.

He could smell something now, something familiar but not quite the dark musky scent of the thing that he knew instinctively that he was pursuing, but not the pure, strong beats of the citizens in the houses around them. This heartbeat was hurried, rapid and terrified, like an animal scared beyond its wits, and so meagre. He knew instinctively, from his pool of new knowledge that the blood in this being was meagre, not enough to satisfy even the smallest thirst without instant death to the human. He shuddered at the thought, a motion he thought, that must shame his uniform but he was now a being of fear. Despite his senses it was Valjean who found her.

Javert was no judge of feminine beauty but even he could see that she must have been beautiful once, before her hair was cut, before her teeth were drawn, leaving her face sunken in, closer to a skull it seemed than anything else. But she was pale, paler than any lady of quality, no roses bloomed in her cheeks, and he knew, before even he saw the blood on the side of her neck that she had fallen victim to the same beasts that he himself had. When she breathed her breath rattled in her throat, and there was a look of uncomprehending terror on her face. Her feet were bare in the snow, and Valjean had fumbled off his coat to wrap her in, and seemed as though he would have swept her from the ground so she need freeze no longer, if she had not protested, her face terrified of him, as though he had been in some way the author of her situation, and an ugly suspicion reared its head once more in Javert’s breast. Had so-called Madeleine sated his urges at the docks?

There was no recognition on the face of Valjean though, there was merely the same expression Javert had seen day in and day out as Inspector of this town, a helpless gentleness with which Javert had no truck, a flawed understanding of the gulf between rich and poor. That had been the face with which Madeleine had pleaded for clemency, the same expression as when he knelt in the dirt beside an old man and his cart. It was not anything that Javert understood. The unfortunate woman was conducted to the hospital that Madeleine had furnished from his own funds once again, and that unreasonably aggravated Javert, that the rewards of such a criminal should be dispersed in such a fashion as succouring the class from which villains like himself had sprung, but he had no choice but to follow along

He did not trust Valjean but at this moment he must use his resources in order to find these things, and as he acknowledged to himself, he feared Valjean would slip away, would run, would render Javert a laughing stock to the town. He availed himself of ink and paper from the solemn nun who looked after the hospital, and while Valjean wasted their time kneeling at the bedside of the pitiful creature they had taken from the streets- a prostitute no less, who Javert had taken in the act of public disturbance at least once before- the memories of his life before the bite were slowly becoming more hazy and he was struggling to retain them, something more frightening than he had thought such a small thing could be. While he communicated the absolute assurance he had that Mayor Madeleine was the wanted convict Jean Valjean, Valjean himself remained beside the woman, who grasping his sleeve, was communicating the existence of a child and it’s whereabouts, to which Valjean listened with grave attention before he too quietly for Javert to hear, made some reply that seemed to ease her, for her hands fell away from him, and she seemed to rest more easily, to submit to her face being bathed by Sister Simplice, who likewise touched her with a quiet gentleness that soothed her immeasurably. Javert folded his letter, sealed it with the aid of a candle and stored it in a pocket. If he should by some misadventure, fail to return to his previous state, he wished what he had discovered to be known. As he was finished, Valjean wrote a note of his own that he persuaded the woman to sign for him, and then shielding the paper with his arm, he wrote a second note that he sealed with wax and tucked away as Javert had done.

Valjean it seemed, suspected nothing of the contents of what Javert had written, the simplicity of the mayor could be traced to the foolishness of the convict it seemed, and Javert was grateful for that. Together, they slipped once more from the building, and Javert swathed himself in his great coat, pulled a wide brimmed hat over his face as best as he could, to avoid the last weak remnants of the winter sun. “Where does our search begin?” he asked, and Valjean it seemed had spoken of more than the woman’s child, for he answered that she had been attacked near the river- where the other bodies had been found, that seized with fear for her child’s safety and health if she should die, she had broken the thrall of the feeding and managed to scream weakly for help. The thing had been scared off, and she had dragged herself into the town, not a soul coming to her aid, and at that Valjean turned his face aside as though this distressed him. Javert could see in it only that the iniquity of the mayor must have been detrimental to the civic spirit of the town in general, but he forebore to mention this.

"Let us start by the river," Valjean suggested, and they made their way down, and as the sun went down, Javert felt the unholiness of his nature return with a greater force. What had been a mild compulsion while the sun was high, seemed doubled, and he could barely control his thirst, his hunger, the need to tear into the delicate flesh beside him, to kill, to devour. It was with the utmost of will that he could force himself to crush it, to wrestle back his own emotions, and he thought with a sudden terror of the next night. If Valjean were right and he were to slowly transform into this thing, over the course of three nights, was this not merely the beginning. If it were so strong, should he be able to resist the temptation on that second night, or the third? Or did he have only more night left? His mind, weakened from the struggle was hazy- only two thoughts seizing his attention, one the need for food, the other the need not to satiate himself.

"Is this what you feel?" he asked Valjean abruptly, for surely being a criminal, being a convict must be a little like this, the same lawlessness, the same care only for one’s own greed, one’s own pockets, the rejection of the rule of law and of the land.

"I do not know how you feel," Valjean replied softly, but his fists were tight, and the lines on his face carved in deep. "Do you suspect me of a secret blood-thirst, do you deem me no better than those animals?"

"Not of a blood-thirst," Javert admitted, "but you are not unlike them. You care merely for yourself, you do not admit the rights the law has over you. You are not so unfamiliar surely with the freedom of these beasts, with how they live by no rule but their own."

"Inspector," Valjean replied, and his fists had relaxed, as he looked across with more kindness than Javert thought he could bear from such a man. "Inspector, if you do so believe such things of me, perhaps I cannot blame you for your intransigence, for your insistence on bringing me before a court, perhaps I may not even blame you for your wilful ignorance of what I have done and why. But I can protest and rightly so against your words. I stole a mere loaf of bread to feed starving children, I served my time, with not a word, not a fist raised even when all hope seemed lost, and then at last bent and broken under the lash of a world that does not care for those most unable to rise and endure the pain, I broke parole. I cannot mourn that for the law you so admire, crushed the soul and spirit of every man wretched enough to stumble once, of every woman brought under its whip, every child deprived of life while the law looked away, and justice was blind." As though worn from the passion of his speech, he subsided, and though Javert could not be convinced by a man who thought he was above the law in such a fashion, there was nothing that could be done, until Javert was cured and Valjean was in chains.

In the silence that followed, Javert felt his sharpened senses grow even bolder, as he realised that behind them, at the distance of thirty feet or so, one of the creatures was following them. He communicated this to Valjean with a significant glance and as they turned the corner, Valjean slipped into a nook of the house and Javert continued walking. He ceased of course on the sound of a scuffle, turned and aided Valjean to restrain whatever the creature was. It took every ounce of Valjean’s considerable strength to restrain the thing, and Javert was obliged in the scuffle to take one of the arms, and then to force the creature to the floor and kneel upon its chest. There was no fear of suffocation, the thing did not breath it seemed- no air was inhaled, and the chest did not expand, and it spat at them, revealing the sharpened edges of his teeth, more pointed than Javert’s but modelled on the same line.

 

With a shock of disappointment, Javert realised that this was not the one who had bitten him and shared its blood in its turn, that their luck had not turned so swiftly, and it was with aggravated disappointment that he demanded to know where he might find his attacker. The thing under his hands grinned, belched out a laugh that seemed to start from somewhere deep inside and trickle upwards. “I shall not tell,” it said, with a wheezy sibilance as though the words did not fit its mouth. Though it appeared human, and wore the shape of a man, there was nothing about it that was not wrong, as though it were the distorted reflection of a person, a figure that must call attention to itself in the light of the day, and Javert fought the instinctive repulsion he felt, and the helpless anger that rose at the thought that this was what he must become, once more an outcast, once more existing merely on the fringe of society, none so far from what his parents had been.

It was with this consciousness that he approached the situation, tried in vain to clear his mind of the fog in it, to understand what he could bargain for information from this creature. “We shall let you go,” he said, thickly, hating every word that fell, and the creature laughed.

"You hold me on no authority," it sneered, and with a little shake of its shoulders, it straightened its spine unnaturally, held its head at such an angle that it looked broken. "I can appear dead if I so choose you realise."

Javert groped hazily at all Valjean had told him of these things. “I shall hold you in the sun,” he said thickly. “They shall see what you are.”

"And you too Inspector," it replied but it no longer smiled now, there were traces of fear to be seen on its countenance. "Besides you would not burn your brother would you?" and Javert could not tell if it meant to enrage, or if the beast thought he were further along on the path of transformation than he was.

"If I had a brother, and he were such a thing," he said with an effort. "I should burn him and all his kind, as I shall dispose of myself in time. Now tell me where I may find your nest," and he had not meant to say nest, but that was the word that sprung to his lips, and he shuddered at the ease which it had done so.

The thing surveyed him, then twisted its lips back. “It can do no harm,” he said finally. “You are not strong enough to stand against the will of your new father, and the other is merely human. You may meet us at the house that belongs to M. Lefebvre, I trust you know of it. There you shall be wakened into our embrace a little early,” and it laughed again until Javert stood, knowing his strength could restrain it no longer, and that it were better that he should appear to release it, than to be thrown aside.

It made to disappear down the street but Valjean spoke up. “What of the woman?” he demanded. “Shall she live?”

With very real disinterest, the creature shrugged. “I doubt it. She was already ill when I drained her to the point of death and pursued her to the town. Such a tender morsel though, flavoured with that most delicious of taints, a pervading love. She could recover I suppose but I do not choose to help,” and before Valjean could respond, it was gone, leaving them alone in the street.

"We must go to the station," Javert decided, but Valjean held his ground.

"What for?" he demanded.

"I shall deliver you to custody," Javert replied as though that were obvious. "Then I shall deliver myself to these creatures and attempt to rid at least one of them of their lives." A vague distress crept through him but he could not tell if it was his normal objection to taking life, or if the thing on the ground had been correct, that he would soon consider himself one of them.

Regardless, Valjean shook his head. “I have a task,” he said. “I must return Fantine’s child to her. I cannot resign myself until I have discharged this duty. Nor can I allow you to confront these monsters alone, not while there is a chance that Fantine may be cured through their agency.” Unspoken the words were there as well, he would not return to Toulon, not like this. All the determination and strength of the mayor was in his countenance, and Javert could not withstand him, not with his mind mazed and his strength sapped by the struggle in the street.

He could merely concede for the moment, armed with his resolution that once he was at full capacity once more, he should undertake his duties faithfully, and retrieve Valjean to where he should be- behind bars. “Do you have weapons?” he asked.

Valjean regarded him in surprise. “I have no need of such things,” he said after a pause. “I own nothing of the sort.” Javert did not argue with this, though he was surprised at Valjean’s words.

"We cannot just walk into their nest," Javert said slowly. "Nor yet can we obtain entrance by trickery for they shall be expecting us. From what it said, we may assume that they number more than the three who we have encountered. So how shall we stand any chance of finding the man whose death will restore my life? Or indeed of preserving any chance."

"There is only one way," Valjean said, and his voice trembled. "You must drink from me. Not to the point of death or where I cannot move, but enough that I appear ashen and drained, and then you must obtain entrance to their lair, under the pretence that you have come to join them, that your humanity has sloughed itself from you already. Under my coat conceal the weapons you shall need and carry me to the door. I will make pretend at being close to death and hopefully they will not judge too closely. You must inquire as to the practicality of preserving my life- claim that it would be to their benefit to have the Mayor of this town under their sway." The mind that had restored the town to prosperity, retrieved it from poverty, when bent to this problem had solved it. Javert could not forget that this man was a criminal, but he could impartially admire the bravery and elegance of the solution, could feel a little respect unwillingly, and could not help but remember that this man had saved a crewman from drowning.

Valjean had told him of the wooden stakes that were the only thing that could take the life of one of these things, and with the resolution of two men they worked together at taking apart the meagre chairs Valjean owned and converting them to sharpened sticks that Valjean then suffered to be tucked into his waistband of his trousers, his shirt pulled over them. When Javert lit a candle so they could work with more light, the silver burnt his hands, and he looked at them for a long second. This was something it seemed Valjean did not know, though he was able to direct Javert to a gift of some silver cutlery that he had been presented as a gift and that he had not yet sold, and between them they distributed the handsome silver knives, though Valjean blanched at the sight and seemed not even to wish to hold them. Javert with the keen perception that had developed over many years, did not think that Valjean would be able to hold them or use them within a fight, and that added to his confliction about the nature of Valjean’s crimes that had been steadily building. A criminal who would not fight, a parole breaker who did not run, a liar who kept his word, they did not add up, and in his state he was shakened by these reflections.        

The hardest part is the draining, harder than anything Javert had ever done, and he could not conceive of anything more difficult. A war raged within his breast, that of the intense hunger that gnawed at his vitals, that begged him to bite and drain, and that of his still rational, still human mind that shuddered at the thought of human blood, at the effrontery of drinking such a thing, that reminded him of what a horror such a thing should be. It was Valjean who with a gentle hand urged him to such a course. “I shall kill you,” Javert said, as levelly as he could, for feeling as he did how could he stop upon the cusp? He would kill no man, shrank from the thought of the taking of life, even of a criminal. He had turned his eyes on execution days so that they rested on the sky, not on the tortured face of the man led to his death, had not doubted the need for such a thing, but had been thankful it was not his hand that had done the deed.

"You shall not," Valjean said as he pulled back the collar from his neck. "You are a servant of the law Javert, your service to the town has been honourable. I trust that you will not overstep your bounds," and with no visible qualm, he left his life in the hands of the man he would not forsake his liberty to. It was with reluctance that Javert bent to his task, and with no reluctance at all, that the beast within took over. The first gulp was like the sweetest wine he’d ever sipped, a nectar that slipped down the throat with ease, bringing health and satisfaction with it. One draught restored him, two revived those functions that as an Inspector he had thought foregone forever, the heady eager rush of intense pleasure, like a long-forgotten memory suddenly at the forefront once again. He was all animal it seemed, the leash and collar of the law that he had worn for so long, slipped as he indulged to an extent he could never have imagined, everything in bold relief- the taste of Valjean’s blood, his warm human qualities under his hand, and the sharp scent of his own arousal, every function at a maximum

The third brought something new, something of Valjean. Not thoughts precisely, nor memories even, more flashes of images, scraps of feelings, that hit like savage fists. There was a distant bloody memory of the same pain that Javert had borne in being bitten, the same tortured pleasure taken unwillingly. Then there was grief, overwhelming, unbelievable, that struck him near to tears himself at the memory of seven lost little faces and a sister, and then they too were gone, swallowed in the remorseless drum of the blood, but part of Javert now. There was a flash of an old man, of a hot stew, of the first bead of jet gleaming beneath his trembling hands, of the press of a hand on hand from the first person who he could spare a sou. There was Valjean, pouring down his throat, closer than blood, than the teeth that Javert has sunk into his neck, and Javert could take no more of him, could hold no more of all that Valjean is, and he broke away in time. Valjean was weakened but still steady, though his face was as pale as Fantine’s had been. He looked as though he is close to death, but Javert had been close enough to know his true strength, to rate him as he should be rated. He had been immeasurably strengthened, his mind cleared by the infusion of blood, his limbs bolstered to inhuman strength, and he picked up Valjean in arms that barely registered the weight now, and made his way to the house that had been named as the meeting place.

He rang, and the same thing that he had knocked down in the street greeted him. “Ah Inspector,” it mocked. “You have brought us a gift?”

"Yes," he replied, and he would not have believed he could lie like this, save that two lives now depended on it, and many more in the future. "He struggled and I could not resist, and after I was done, I did not want to." He did not hide anything that he felt, reckoned they must have dealt with men like him before, and indeed the door swung open, let him in with his burden.

"He is still alive," observed the creature that led him further into the house. "But we shall discuss that when all are gathered."

Javert laid Valjean upon the floor and took a seat, gazed around the room in interest to preserve every detail in his mind. The mirrors had been covered, the windows swathed in heavy drapes, and in the air was the rusty scent of old blood. Gradually, the group gathered, twelve in total, women in finery, their bright eyes and whitened skin marking them as inhuman, men in good clothing with frightening voices. It was as though some macabre ball had tipped out its populace, and Javert had not reckoned on such a strength, doubted the plan they had created. His only comfort was the nearness of the sunrise, the potential of its lethal rays. When all were seated, their acknowledged chief, a man in the richest clothing, spoke.

"Welcome Inspector Javert," he said with an elaborate courtesy. "We had not intended to turn you but we do not kill our own kind and so we make you welcome. Thank you for bringing us a gift, he is near drained it seems, but the thought is good."

"I brought him as a gift," Javert replied, "in more than one way. It seemed to me after I had drunk that I should not kill. He is the mayor of this town, rich and influential in many ways. Could he not be of some use? Is there some way that strength could be restored to him?" This was the question he knew Valjean wished answered for the sake of that woman in the hospital, and true to his word he opened with it.

The man looked at him as though in deep thought. “A man drained near to death, can be saved by only one means,” he said slowly. “To be turned. To be one of us in eternal darkness. A man merely weakened though will recover in time. I am intrigued by your proposal however. Is this man likely to be one who is cowed by the knowledge of what we are?”

The man who stood by the fireplace shifted and Javert caught sight of familiar features and felt his heart leap within his breast. It was the man who had turned him, and he concealed his agitation as best as he could at the thought, was not sure if he had succeeded. Hastily he answered. “I believe so, yes. He would be of benefit in many things, dedicated as he is to the safety of the town. He would sacrifice much to keep his citizens safe,” and though he was merely mouthing words to convince, he knew that he wasn’t entirely far from the truth. The man who lay on the floor was not Valjean but Madeleine at this moment, a dichotomy in the shape of a man.

The interrogation, for such he recognised it as, continued apace, and he answered as many questions as he could, as truthfully as he could do so, stalling for time until the sun should rise. His sense of direction was excellent and the windows of this room faced East, and as far as he could tell, in a little under a quarter of the hour it would be sunrise. He couldn’t be certain of course, and the next few minutes made him pray that he had miscalculated and in fact that sunrise was early. The head of the clan as they appeared to call themselves had knelt to the floor and taken up Valjean’s wrist preparatory to drinking again.

“I thought you would preserve him for his use?” Javert said calmly.

The man raised an eyebrow. “I shall. But tasting of his blood will let me taste his memories,” and with a sharp fingernail he scored across the exposed skin. Javert could not allow it to proceed. If he tasted Valjean’s memories he would know their plan. With his new swiftness he pulled the silver knife from his pocket and held it firmly.

“Away,” he said. The man moved slowly away, hands apart, eyes narrowed.

“What is he to you?” he asked

“Nothing that concerns you,” Javert replied, but already the silver was burning him badly enough even through his glove, that he couldn’t hold on, as the head of the clan well knew from the smile that spread across his face. Valjean withdrew a knife of his own and woozily stood, backed towards the window as though in fear.

“You must let us go,” he said, hand groping behind him for the drape, and with a snarl of rage the one who had turned Javert leapt for Valjean, who with a speed belied by his weakened state, turned away and let the creature hurl itself through the glass, and wonder of wonders, the sun was up, peeking over the rooftops, just barely but still there, and enough it seemed to reduce the creature to a pile of ash in a very short time.

Javert who had been endeavouring to hold off three of the beasts, felt the death of his maker keenly, and fell to the floor in a convulsion of pain. Valjean leapt forward to drag him into the sun, even at the risk of the teeth and claws of all the rest, and with his prodigious strength, not just of body but also of will, he carried the day, leaving the blood-drinkers to scatter to better shaded parts of the house, and Javert had not expected this. Wracked with the hideous pain that was his body accustoming itself to humanity, he had not the mind to think on it all, nor the strength to protest, and Valjean managed to carry him far enough that when they collapsed they were completely in the weak winter sun, and safe.

It wasn’t until much later- it was indeed well into the next day, that Javert woke, in Valjean’s house, still not healed but almost there. Valjean was at the table with a bowl of soup that perceiving Javert was awake he brought over and handed him a spoon. It did not taste as good as the blood he had consumed when near out of his mind had, but it was rich and warming and good. As he ate, Valjean moved slowly around the room. “I must go,” he said, and it was simple. “Fantine died, and I promise that I should care for her child. I cannot be arrested by you. It is not right. You may hunt for me, but for my sake I hope you do not succeed.”

 Javert still weakened by the changes enacted upon his body watched him, unable to say a word, a storm of feeling within him that he could not interpret. “I have written letters,” Valjean added, “informing the council that I shall be away on business and must therefore resign as Mayor. I have suggested my replacement- M. le Blanc, a good man who will do well by the town, and now I must leave. The fiacre is hired.” He paused for a moment then knelt down beside Javert. “I cannot convince you I am not what you think I am, that one small crime can be wiped clean, and therefore I must leave. To shield you from accusation however I have taken the liberty of writing a confession. No more shall I be known by this name,” and he withdrew the letter he had written by Fantine’s bed-side from his coat and placed it beside Javert. “Farewell Inspector,” he said softly and departed through the door.

 

Javert didn’t know how much later it was that he found himself by the bridge outside of town, gazing into the river, wracked by everything he thought he had known and by the way it had been overturned. Valjean’s letter burnt heavy in his pocket, a man’s life in ruins, a man who had thrown himself in harm’s way for a man he had no cause to wish good for. The heavy weight of the remains of Valjean’s memories, the simplest joy in a piece of bread, the agony of seven lost children, not merely the absence of evil, but the presence of good in a man who on paper was nothing more than a dangerous criminal of the worst type. With the knowledge that he had been a monster, drawn back from the brink of evil himself, saved when all was thought lost, the parallels were irresistible, inevitable and impossible to avoid, and he could not rest. If he were wrong, if he were  _wrong_ then the law was wrong, and the law had driven a man and his good works from the town he had made his home. He almost cried aloud in his anguish, almost begged for answers, his mind still unbalanced from the changes he had undergone.

It was so tempting, so easy to let himself fall forward into the murky chasm before him, to resign himself to the deeps, to bury his suffering and his doubts in the deepest grave he could find, but on the brink he was stayed, he turned away in the knowledge of the duty he owed. Eleven creatures of the type that had tried to turn him were still at large. Eleven creatures who would kill and maim and destroy where they went. It was his duty to find them, to bring them to justice. And as for Valjean, he would see him again, this he was certain of, and on that day he should shake him by the hand and thank him. 

 


End file.
